


The Other Martha

by iamfitzwilliamdarcy



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Mothers are Important
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 12:28:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10437747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamfitzwilliamdarcy/pseuds/iamfitzwilliamdarcy
Summary: She often wonders about her, the Other Martha.





	

She often wonders about her—the Other Martha. The Martha who kept her son safe, the Martha who saved her life. She looked her up once, on the internet, but the articles there are mostly about her son; she’d shifted through conspiracy blog and gossip blogs until she gives it up and let Lois drive her to the library to look at the microfiche.

She finds her obituary. 1981. The black and white picture, right next to her husband’s. They’d led vastly different lives, she and the Other Martha. But they’d both been mothers. 

It’s not enough, in the end, the pieces she’s gleaned from decades old newspapers, so she goes to him, on the anniversary. It’s not an anniversary she’s ever kept before, but, she thinks, maybe one she would start. For her—the Other Martha.

He’s there, at their graves, wearing a suit, hulking and hunched all at the same time, only just arrived, flowers in hand. She clears her throat, to warn him of her approach, but he doesn’t seem surprised to see her. He just nods and turns to the graves again. Lowers the flowers to the ground, gently, delicately (she wonders if these are the same hands that had once bloodied her own son) and steps back, hands in his pockets. 

Survived by her son, Bruce Wayne.

She reaches out and touches his elbow. He turns, his lips twisted into a frown, uncomfortable. For a moment, she thinks she’s overstepped her bounds, but he clears his throat huskily and says, “I’m not your son. I can’t be.” 

Survived by his mother, Martha Kent. 

She shakes her head. That’s not what she wants. She doesn't know how to tell him how different he is from her Clark. Says instead, “Why don’t you tell me about her?” 

He blinks, and she thinks maybe she has surprised him at last. He’s quiet for a while, but she knows grief, and waits. Finally, as if unsure, he says, “I can show you pictures of her? Back at the Mansion.”

“I’d like that,” she says. And smiles because it’s true. 

He offers her his hand and helps her to his home. His hand is too small, but she’s not trying too pretend. 

He leaves her in the living room just past the entrance with a cup of tea and several finger sandwiches his butler has brought. She takes it in, the pictures over the fire place, crowding the mantle. The paintings on the walls. She sees her, the Other Martha, smiling in a portrait, pearls across her neck.

She moves along the mantle where she finds a picture of the her on her wedding day, head thrown back in laughter, eyes sparkling, dark hair pooled around her shoulders. Her husband's hand is in hers. They're dancing.  
She aches for her own husband.

He's back a moment later arms full of a leather bound album. The cover’s dusty and it makes her sad. He looks as though he's not sure where to start, so she points at the wedding photo and says, "Her dress is beautiful." 

Far more elegant and expensive than her own had been. The Billionaire's wife and the wife of a Farmer. 

His lips move into what she supposes is his smile, though it's faint. "She told me once she had been terrified to wear it in case she ruined it. But once she had it on she never wanted to take it off again."

She laughs a little remembering trying her dress on in the middle of the night, suddenly terrified it wouldn't fit. 

He seems pleased that he’s managed to make her smile and turns to the couch. She starts to follow but stops, catching sight of a corner frame on the mantle; there’s two pictures, both of dark haired boys. One’s grinning at the camera, dressed in a cap and gown; the other is gap-toothed with braces, twelve or thirteen, smiling widely despite the dental ware, uniform shirt white and stark against the dark gray background. She takes a moment to look at them before determining they’re not the same kid and that neither is a young Bruce. 

He catches her looking and clears his throat. “He hated that picture,” he says, nodding at the boy in braces; it sounds like the words don’t come easy. “It was always one of my favorites.”

She doesn’t ask; she recognizes a parent who’s lost their child. She comes and sits next to him instead, pats his shoulder. He clears his throat again and opens the album. He flips through too quickly for her taste, has few stories, but she doesn’t mind. She just wants to know her. 

There are more wedding pictures. A few from a beach vacation—Martha likes the one where she’s standing at the water’s edge, staring off into the horizon waves lapping at her feet, wearing a bathing suit Martha could never have pulled off, her sheer cover-up and a hair floating in the wind. There’s one with her on horseback, a toddler Bruce settled in the saddle in front of her. They both look happy.

She looks for her son in her, in the glimpses she can get of the Other Martha. There’s the dark hair of course, the shape of their eyes. He’s built more like his father, but she thinks if he smiled more, it’d be hers. 

They keep flipping; they have more pictures in a single album than she and Jonathan have in a lifetime. There’s one of her, young, maybe not even 20, with a man not much older, in an Army uniform. It gives her pause because she’s crying. 

“My uncle,” Bruce says, when she stops him to look longer. “He’d just come home for a surprise visit.” 

Bruce frowns down at the photo and adds, as if in explanation to her unspoken question, “He and my father didn’t get along; it was hard for her I think.”

He’s strong, this Bruce Wayne, she thinks, and maybe she can find that in the Other Martha too. 

She goes from watching the pictures to watching him; there’s a sad little almost-smile on his lips. “I haven’t looked at these in ages,” he tells her with a little shake of his head. “Not since--,” he stops talking there and shakes his head again. 

She doesn’t know if it’s because she’s a mother of a grown man herself, but it’s easy to see his vulnerability. She reaches out and pats his cheek; he bows his head a little at her touch. 

“Thank you for sharing with me,” she says. Invites him to dinner at the Farm the following Wednesday. She takes his acceptance as her own thank you for listening.

She pauses as he sees her out, looking at the wedding picture again, at the smiling portrait of The Other Martha. 

The Other Martha has her Clark now, and there’s a little peace for her in that. It’s not the first time she’s shared her son. And she has her Bruce, her stoic, vulnerable, hurting, hopeful son. 

They’ll take care of their boys.

“I think she would’ve liked you,” Bruce tells her, on the way out. She knows it’s hard for him to say those words.

“Yes,” Martha tells him. “I think I would’ve liked her too.”


End file.
